Italy to find out if it can afford populists’ agenda

ITALIAN economic growth and deficit data for 2017 were revised up, giving Finance Minister Giovanni Tria the final pieces of data to decide whether he can afford to start tax cuts and provide a basic income promised by the populist government.

The estimate for growth last year was raised to 1.6% from 1.5% previously, lowering the debt ratio to 131.2% from 131.8%, Istat, the statistics agency in Rome, said yesterday. Still, last year’s deficit was revised up to 2.4% from 2.3% previously due to lower tax revenue and higher spending.